The tale of Orion Williamson, the Selma farmer who vanished while walking across a field in 1854 as his family watched, is one of the most written about tales in Alabama lore. It was so popular in fact, that famed journalist Ambrose Bierce came to investigate and write about the claims. The resulting story was called, "The Difficulty of Crossing a Field."

The only problem is, the name of the farmer and his place of disappearance change with the telling. In some cases, he is David Lang of Tennessee who disappeared in 1880. Not only that, but Bierce was known for his interest in writing about supernatural phenomenon.

Is Williamson's story true? We'll never know for sure. Today, I am listing mysteries whose details are real; they are recorded by authorities and in newspaper accounts. However, their outcomes are as mysterious as that of the case of Orion Williamson.

In 1918, Austin Mize left his family in Odenville, Ala., before his 18th birthday to become a sailor aboard the USS Cyclops. The ship set sail from Rio de Janeiro and headed into the Bermuda Triangle three days after he celebrated his milestone birthday on Feb. 13, 1918. Within a month, Mize would vanish, along with 305 other crew and passengers aboard.

The Cyclops disappeared sometime in March on its way to Maryland. No bodies or trace of the ship were ever found. The cause of its sinking is still listed as "unknown."

Mize's family placed a memorial marker in Liberty Presbyterian Cemetery in Odenville, with the inscription:

The moonshine mysteryHoward and Robert Dye and Dan Brasher, Jefferson County, Ala., 1956

One rainy March night in 1956, brothers Billy Howard Dye, age 19, and Robert Earl Dye, 23, and their cousin Dan Brasher, 38, went to a party at the home of Billy's girlfriend in rural Jefferson County. They were driving Billy's dark green 1947 Ford, according to the book "Forgotten Tales of Alabama."

At the party, the Dye brothers and Brasher encountered a local bootlegger from whom, according to rumor, the cousins had been stealing. At about 2 a.m., several men left the house carrying pickaxes and shovels and piled into two cars, one of which was Billy's Ford. The first car came back, the witness said. Billy's was never seen again.

An employee of a nearby store told authorities a man had come into his store following the cousins' disappearance asking for "anything that might remove blood from a floor." The clerk recommended Red Devil lye, which the man bought.

In the decades since the disappearance, Jefferson County authorities have searched caves, mines and caverns for the men's bodies.

In the mid-1970s, investigators acting on a tip dug up parts of Highway 79 near Pinson and bored holes looking for evidence. Using sonar, they saw a mass of metal beneath the highway but it turned out to be scrap metal.

Then, in 1984, came the biggest break in the case. An ex-convict from Louisiana named T.J. Chamblee confessed to participating in murdering the men, saying he wanted to clear his conscience. Chamblee said he helped disposed of the bodies and the Ford in an abandoned mine near Trafford. But when local authorities went to Louisiana to question Chamblee, they discovered his story held inconsistencies.

He was never charged. To this day, the case remains open.

The John Wilkes Booth look-alikeJames W. Boyd, Jackson, Tenn., 1865

The case of James W. Boyd, a man who shared initials and similar appearance with Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth, is one of the strangest vanishings in the South, largely because of the legends surrounding it.

Boyd, a former Confederate officer in the Sixth Tennessee Infantry, was 42 years old when he went missing in 1865.

During the Civil War, Boyd was captured and held as a prisoner of war in Jackson. However, when his wife and the mother of the couple's seven children died, he petitioned for a compassionate release so he could care for the children. It was granted in February of 1865.

Reportedly, Boyd's son received a letter from his father asking him to meet him in Brownsville, Texas. From there, they would take a trip to Mexico. Boyd never arrived at the meeting site and no one ever heard from him again.

The mysterious case made headlines again more than a century later when David W. Balsiger and Charles E. Sellier Jr. wrote in their 1977 book, "The Lincoln Conspiracy," that they believed Boyd was mistaken for Booth and was shot and killed April 26, 1865, at Richard Garrett's farm in Virginia. The theory, never proven, states Booth survived.

The lost boysBobby Dunbar, St. Landry Parish, La., 1912

The story of Bobby Dunbar's disappearance is about two lost boys: Bobby and the one who replaced him.

Four-year-old Bobby Dunbar of Opelousas, La., was on a trip with his parents, Percy and Lessie Dunbar at Swayze Lake, La., when he disappeared. Massive searches were conducted for the little boy, according to HistoricMysteries.com.

Eight months later, a boy was found with a man named William Cantwell Walters of Mississippi. Walters denied the boy was the missing Bobby Dunbar. Instead, he claimed the boy was Bruce Anderson and he had the permission of the boy's mother, Julia Anderson.

Anderson said she allowed Walters to take Bruce on a two-day trip but Walters and the boy had been gone for 13 months and Anderson never reported her son missing.

In the meantime, the Dunbars identified the boy as Bobby and a judge gave them custody, likely because Walters' and Anderson's stories were so suspicious. Walters was found guilty of kidnapping and spent two years in jail.

After Bobby died in 1966, his son Robert Dunbar Jr., had a DNA test. Turns out, Bobby was not related to the Dunbars. Who he was and what happened to Bobby Dunbar remain mysteries.

Members of First Baptist Church of Opelika were mystified when Sunday School teacher Ruth Purcell Murphree Dorsey, 69, failed to show up for church on Aug. 18, 1974. She was reported missing and Lee County deputies went to her home on Route 1 to check on her. They found the front door open and her dogs huddling in a bathroom. Her Sunday School lesson and Bible were on a table. Dorsey's car, a 1972 Ford Galaxy, was found with the keys in the ignition in downtown Opelika.

Authorities learned Dorsey told a gas station attendant the day before she was going to pick up a relative but a neighbor reported she returned home alone later that night.

The case remains unsolved.

Lost, or murdered?Harris Rufus Loggins, Compton, Ala., 1939

On a cold February morning in 1939, 79-year-old farmer Harris Rufus Loggins said goodbye to his wife Dovie Lou and left his Blount County home, presumably to walk to the home of relatives a few miles away. He was never seen again.

According to Robin Sterling in the book, "Tales of Old Blount County, Ala.," hundreds of people turned out to search for the missing man, the father of seven grown children. But no one found a trace. Relatives were distraught and confused. They knew of no reason Loggins would simply leave his family. They had fliers printed at the office of the local newspaper, The Southern Democrat, and distributed them around Compton. A reward was offered.

It wasn't until May a potential lead was found. Another farmer, A.C. Posey, stumbled on a human thigh bone near his barn. Thinking it could be Loggins' remains, a new search was launched. This time, arm bones were found in the area. No other remains were found and with no way to test the bones in 1939, officials never determined if they belonged to Loggins. If so, what happened? Did he get lost in the mountainous region and die in the cold? Did some attack him and bury him? To this day, no one knows what became of Harris Loggins.

The strange case of the missing sistersEloise and Beatrice Nelms, Atlanta, Ga.

In 1914, Mrs. John W. Nelms of Atlanta opened a letter and got the shock of her life: It was a confession from her daughter, Eloise Nelms Dennis, saying she had murdered her sister Bernice and that she planned to kill her brother Marshall, who had moved to San Francisco, before killing herself, according to ForgottenStories.net and numerous newspaper accounts from the time.

The handwriting did not look familiar and Mrs. Nelms immediately contacted police.

Eloise, who was divorced and had a young son, had served as post mistress in East Point, Ga., following the split with her husband. That June, she had gone to meet Beatrice, a successful investor, in New Orleans to travel to Houston to look at property.

Some suspected Eloise had been in love with her divorce attorney, Victor Inness, who had said he was single. Upon investigation, authorities learned Inness was actually married to a woman named Ida May Inness.

Marshall Nelms did not believe the letter was from Eloise and was determined to find out what happened to his sisters. The case was splashed across newspapers and people reported seeing the women in Biloxi, Gulfport, Mobile and San Antonio but nothing came of the leads.

Authorities found evidence at the Inneses' rented cottage in San Antonio, including a woman's shoe, lye, and a meat grinder. Marshall told reporters: "Our theory is that my two sisters were done away with, their bodies cut into pieces, ground in a meat chopper and either burned or buried."

Although the Innesses could not be charged with murder because at the time that required a body or witnesses that had seen a body, thanks to Marshall's vigilance, the Innesses were eventually indicted in Georgia for "larceny of trust" for conning the sisters. They were convicted.

What truly happened to the Nelms sisters remains a mystery.

Join al.com reporter Kelly Kazek on her regular journey through the South to record the region's quirky history, strange roadside attractions and tales of colorful characters. Find her on Facebook or follow her Odd Travels and Real Alabama boards on Pinterest.